Victoria Doronina, resign immediately.
You have interfered with an open election resulting in a mass boycott with multiple open letters explaining the case. You blatantly violated the WMF Board of trustees code of conduct. If you refuse to resign the board should stop circling the wagons and creating tangents by lobbying "personal" comments in volunteer forums and sack her for blatant misconduct.
Specifically "Be honest and accurate in conveying professional conclusions, opinions, and research findings, and in acknowledging the potential limitations." and "The Foundation recognizes as bullying behavior that may be characterized as offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting, or an abuse or misuse of power through means intended to undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the recipient."
WMF Board of trustees Code of Conduct: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Code_of_Conduct_of_the_Wikimedi...
Fact check, did Victoria lie? ==================== Yes, the defamatory allegations against both Lane and Ravan were demonstrated as false the same day they were published. She must have been fully aware they were lies before posting them. These public responses were available to the WMF Board at the start of the WMF board election and have not been addressed. 1. Breakdown of the defamatory allegations against Lane: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... 2. Breakdown of the defamatory allegations against Ravan: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Coordinating_Commi...
On Tue, 21 Oct 2025 at 07:34, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Wikimedians
I have been thinking more about my message to this mailing list and the reactions it caused, and I want to offer my apologies. People who know me know that I always speak my mind and I am a direct person. I think this is one of the reasons people voted for me on the Board.
When we had the Movement Charter vote last year and people were questioning the Board’s decision, I wrote a message to explain my personal reasons for my vote, especially since this was one of the campaign issues in my election to the Board. I felt it was important to keep my promise.
So I did that again here. But my mistake was that this board decision is about people, not about a document, and people don’t deserve to be drawn attention to in ways that can cause harm. I also understand that the Board’s code of conduct requires Trustees to coordinate their public communications on collective decisions, which I did not do this time.
I am frustrated by what I see as inaccurate information about some aspects of the election but understand that sometimes not all forms of official communications can satisfy everyone.
First and foremost, I would like to apologise to Ravan and Lane for any harm I may have caused them as people. In hindsight, it sounds naive that I did not intend it. I will tell them more personally but a public apology is essential. I would also like to apologise to any Wikimedian who experienced any negative emotions as a result of my letter. And I apologise to the Board and staff as well for breaking the agreed commnucation strategy.
I have decided to immediately suspend myself from most of the board activities until the end of the year, in coordination with Board officers. I will continue my Wikimedia activities such as editing, uploading photos etc.
Thank you for reading this letter.
-- Kind regards, Victoria Victoria Doronina https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/dr-victoria-doronina/ (she/her) Trustee Sister Projects Taskforce Lead
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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